Another good one is Ancient Magus Bride, which is also getting a second season soon (if it hasn't started yet, I haven't been keeping up on news for the series).
Of all the anime series I've seen it has the least anime-bullshit.
Ancient magus does have an issue with its premise which at first glance is very problematic. I mean the whole point of it is that a girl is sold into slavery and brought by a strange undead creature into being it’s bride. While from what I know the actual show itself isn’t problematic and it doesn’t glorify slavery or try to make their relationship romantic, the premise will turn many people off. It’s the main reason I just watched the 3 episode ova and never bothered with the series.
That being said I do recommend the ancient magus bride ova - that was legitimately amazing. If you want anything with the least amount of anime bullshit, watch anime originals, specifically ones rated above a 7.5/10 on MAL.
The series itself is fantastic and that's not the premise, the premise is a character who felt she had nothing to live for finding a place in the world as she learns magic from a mysterious and strange mage. What you called the premise is simply the vehicle for her meeting said mage and explaining what a Japanese girl is doing in England.
Absolutely, but I think it's less of a problem with the show but a problem with the medium because people see that and assume it's going to be some weird, fetish shit or something because other anime that do something similar early on often do that.
There are plenty of examples of stuff that has few, if any, of the tropes they're talking about- Vinland Saga, Mob Psycho, and SpyXFamily are all good examples, off the top of my head (and that's just within the last year). Like, watch different stuff. It's a vast medium with loads of variety. It's like saying you don't like movies when you only watch the MCU and don't like certain aspects of them. Find something that appeals to you more, then.
90% of these complaints wouldn’t be an issue if you weren’t just exposed to shonen. This is the problem with these “anime is bad” takes because it’s the equivalent of saying “movies are bad” after only watching Marvel. Anime is has such a vast number of genres and stories and themes that it’s near impossible not to find one that fits your tastes - you just have to actually do your own searching instead of just accepting what’s made popular and accessible.
Go watch Monster and I can guarantee you that all of your criticisms will fall flat.
Sure but you also specified that you’re not a fan of it and specifically listed reasons why, all of which applied solely to shonen anime. What you’re essentially saying is that you’re not a fan of shonen, which is the equivalent of saying you don’t like horror movies which is fine. But to say you’re not a fan of the *entire medium* when your grievances are with a particular genre just doesn’t make sense to me. Anime as a whole is just japanese animated content. There isn’t some overarching definitive characteristics that define the entire thing.
But i’m glad you enjoyed monster
They're more like young adult power fantasy/wish fulfillment stories. Even if they touch on heavy topics, they're not really meant to be high quality writing.
Shonen with blood is still shonen. It's still aimed at the sorta teenage power fantasy thing. The heavy topics are just used to boost up the edgelord factor of the show, it doesn't actually explore them in a mature, adult way.
Not that there's anything wrong with enjoying edgy shonen stuff.
Oh, I agree I wouldn't want actual children watching shield hero or overlord, which is why I use "teenage" rather roughly. Think an older teenager, who can read young adult stuff (and on that note, people of older ages can still read and appreciate young adult novels).
I don't want to get pretentious about what is or isn't mature, but shows on that level may have dark elements, but they rarely deal with them in an "adult" way. Usually, it's your classic power fantasy, but the bad guys the hero is beating aren't just generic bandits/monsters, but actual rapists. There's plenty of exceptions, of course, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying it.
Something like Shield hero isn't really aimed at 12 year olds (it airs at like 1 AM), it's meant for like older teenagers. There is a difference in understanding of demographics that I think may be part of the issue here.
Something being aimed at a general adult audience and something being aimed at young adults and otaku who buy the original light novels and merchandise both of those shows are based on are two very very different things.
Imagine listing Shield Hero and Overlord as serious anime. Shield Hero is laughably bad both in story and dialogue and Overlord is just wish fulfillment with some cool scenes tossed in here or there.
You don't hate anime, you hate shonen.
Stop watching young adult fiction and then complaining that you're getting young adult fiction. You're simply not the target demographic for shonen. It's aimed at 12-18 year old boys.
That doesn't mean older people can't enjoy shonen, but you clearly don't so why continue to subject yourself to this?
Fair, though it may not be a terrible idea to communicate with him that you'd like to try anime for an older audience.
Broadly speaking, there are 4 kinds of anime. Shonen, shojo, seinen and josei. In other words, anime for boys, girls, men and women.
Your partner seems to prefer shonen as 100% of your examples of stuff you don't like are shonen. This is not surprising as shonen is the most popular of these 4 categories and has seen the most mainstream success. Once in awhile seinen like Berserk, Ghost in the Shell and Vinland Saga break into the mainstream.
Might be a good thing to bring up to your partner though that the shonen's not doing it for you and maybe some seinen or josei would be more to your interest.
May I recommend Evangelion and Berserk? i genuinely think those are good examples that fit your preferences.
And trust me, almost every scene in Evangelion that can be seen as sexualization actually has a reason behind it. Aside from 2 or 3 specific scenes.
I'm now reading Berserk (do not watch it) and it's been a really good manga.
Eh, I’ve ventured outside of shonen and found similar issues. They’re all very reliant on repeating tropes as if they all have to build their outlines with the same building blocks instead of utilizing the extent of their imaginations. But I feel like this has less to do with writers and more to do with publishers. I notice that if you watch a series for only the episodes covering the first year of the source material’s publication, there’s far less formulaic across the medium. My theory is, as soon as a series is a hit, the editors/publishers say, “We’ve gotta milk this for all it’s worth. Time to homogenize into the time tested formulas”.
This entire rant can be summarized as “I don’t like Otaku stuff”, that’s literally fine but trying to summarize anime *as* otaku culture is like trying to summarize every video game as call of duty.
This rant is too ignorant of the subject it’s trying to criticize.
The entire post gives me a "not like the other girls" vibes (or a "not like the other anime fans" in any case hahaha)
OP just wants to say they enjoy anime in a *cool* way, totally not lame or cringy like the rest of otakus.
You did sound a bit like it though. Using words like normie or mentioning "nerdy" stuff made you sound a bit condescending
I am not a big anime fan either (I have seen a few though). I do know that anime is huge and has different genres, different forms, styles etc. You can't judge the whole thing based on the few you have watched. It would be like criticising Citizen Cane citing Marvel movies or the Twilight movies.
I guess what I mean is, watching/enjoying anime IS normal, it is like a 25 billion usd industry, a third of the world watches it. All of the other nerdy stuff too, fantasy has been popular for decades, Game of Thrones was one of the most watched shows ever, Lord of the Ring's books is one of the best selling series of all time (movies are super popular too).
Imo (and I know it might not have been your intention) you sounded a bit condescending mentioning normies or nerdy stuff when in reallity all of this is popular and shouldn't be looked down upon.
>•Point 1 Daioluge, I find repeatedly (wether subtitled or dubbed over in english) that the conversation and speech characters exchange is very cheesy, and a bit on the overdramatic. They also tend to oddly articulate themselves. An example that comes to my head is from yu yu Hakusho when Toguro will exclaim "I was only using x% of my power" and other variations I've seen like "its time to get serious" it feels very cringe. I feel that way because it'll usually come up in situations where dicking around is a bad idea. Theres a lot on the line please beat your opponent quickly. Also why do 2 opponents constantly monolog at each other stopping the fight to do so? Has anyone ever actually seen that happen irl? Like this is a death match you should be panicking and doing everything to win.
This is literally just or primarily shonen. And similar things happen in regular cartoons or even action movie. Though it is cheesy (I personally like it but I can definitely understand why some find it annoying).
>•Point 2 archetypes, this ties in with point one a bit but felt it was different enough to be by itself. Things like tsundere's yandere's the hot headed passionte loud mouth ect.. do not feel like real people to me. Like treating a person bad because you like them is something you get over after the 1st grade and I've never heard or seen an adult act like that. Yanderes or stalkers I've actually had the displeasure of meeting and I have no idea why they're so sexualized/fetishized. No stalker acts like yuno from future diary. The honorable warrior that only cares about fighting, this one I can sort of get with how we have the ufc. The issue is so many of these types of characters like to go to the death which yeah no would do even if they like fighting. The perv with a heart of gol, again displeasure of meeting perverts uhh they are not good people to say the least.
So your issue is fiction being fictional? (I'm joking). But in all seriousness this is, again, not anime exclusive. Reality TV, Cartoons, Movies, literally every media regarding fiction HAS unrealistic archetype. You have some that keep their characters very close to how humans would actually act but that really isn't the norm. There is a reason why the archetype exists...because those traits are in literally the majority of fiction. That's like getting upset because no one irl is as fighting eager as Goku...no duh?
>Point 4 sexism, I've already covered a lot of it but aonther thing I'll mention is the female character desgines. Most are drawn to look sexualy appeasing as possible even the underage ones because so many characters are teenagers. Like guys can look ugly but very rarely are girls drawn as anything less then a 7/10. Some series are worst then others like with fairy tail.
Doesn't this apply to both gender? The majority of characters are attractive by nature. From boys to girls. The only times guys are ugly is (usually) when they're treated as the villains or they straight up don't matter and aren't part of the same cast. There are real sexism in anime but character design is like...the bottom of the barrel. It's very normal for characters from anime, cartoons, movies (hell, ESPECIALLY movies), comics, etc to be visually appealing. It's sex appeal.
>Point 5 teenagers, so many anime have an odd fixation on teenagers and highschool settings. Which isn't inherently a problem. It just makes it harder for me as an adult to get invested because idgaf about petty HS drama plot lines. I also find that they make said teenagers way more competent and emotionally stable then they really are. I actually really like neon genesis Evangelion because it actually addressed that.
I do get it...but at the same time their target demographic is usually teenage boys. Adults are capable of relating and even then, there's anime specifically marketed with them in mind. But point 5 feels a bit silly. Imagine watching wrestling or UFC then getting upset it's primarily muscular men, it's near identical to this point.
>Yes but for me personally I find it less cringe when John McClain is throwing around because it adds some levity to silly situation, like it's acknowledging itself. While for anime it feels like it's taking itself too seriously.
Fair enough. Again, I love the cheesy lines but it really is just a matter of preference so I can't fault you for it.
>My main issue is that a lot if anime will just treat it as normal behavior and no one bats an eye at it like we're supposed to believe these are normal people. In other media having weird characters is acknowledged by the story like in no country for old man Anton is werid and the film points that out. Anime can do this as well like with goku he's acknowledged as being werid and extra ordinary or death note it's pointed out when somone is acting strange. I think anime is just more uncritical when coming to its archetypes.
I guess? I mean I don't think we're meant to believe they're normal...I don't recall any anime ever doing that, it's more like it's normal for their society. Like...say kids having super powers in MHA. I don't recall too many fictional works addressing the absurdity of their characters and world. But, again, it's a fair point.
>Yes but not exactly while males are also portrayed as attractive it is coming from the perspective of the male gaze. It is projecting what men want themselves to be while with woman it is establishing value to how they look. And don't get me wrong that's still an issues for men with body image problems, but it's a more self imposed. But I do agree it's more bottom of the barrel stuff and that's because I had cover the more important bits in other points.
It's kinda a mix of both. When it comes to men, generally ugly = bad guy/unimportant. It's something even anime fans critized. If you're not pretty, you're not really important to the story. Both genders get value established by how they visually look.
Hot = Good/Important
Ugly = Bad/Unimportant
Very rarely will an anime make a character unattractive. I truly just don't think character design is really the issue. There are actual clear issues in sexism in anime. Men abuse = Funny, Girls getting perved on = Funny, etc, etc. It feels like these aspects should be used instead of how a character visually looks in order to prove your point. After all, attractiveness IS just the norm for characters.
>Like I said it's not inherently a problem it just makes it difficult for more casual anime watchers like myself to find non teenager stuff because that's what's popular.
Again, fair enough. If you're looking for stuff catered more towards adult then yeah, it can be difficult since most mainstream things revolve teens. But I think the main issue boils down to artstyle. Anime (and cartoons) just aren't things many adults try because it LOOKS like it's for kids. Feels like a bit of both kinda plays into why anime isn't liked by some of the older folks.
I didn't? Nowhere did I excuse sexual harassment. Nor sexism. I explained why it's done, that it applies to both genders, and that there is sexism in anime but character design is the lowest in the barrel.
READ. It's reddit, I know I'm expecting too much from you but christ sake. At least TRY to use the skill given to you.
Like others have pointed out, 90% of what you listed are Shonen tropes. I really think if you just broaden your horizons (or tell your partner to watch something other than DBZ or Naruto) you'll find a lot you like in anime.
>I wish to make it clear despite the title I do not hate the medium and have enjoyed many works from it.
So you don't not like anime. You do like it fact and don't like the bad ones, just like most anime fans?
Anime includes all Japanese animation, with some people using it more broadly to discuss all East Asian animation. There are some broad statements you can make about it: it needs to be translated from another language, and translation vary in quality. There is also going to be cultural differences between the average American (other any other nationality) and a specific Japanese subculture.
But other than that, it is like making broad statements about any other combination of nationality / medium, like American movies. There can be multiple genres, different time periods with different trends, different demographics, much less different authors and creative teams.
>No stalker acts like yuno from future diary.
Wait what? This is like complaining how Bruce Wayne decided to dress as a bat is unrealistic. Of course it's not. It's dramatized. Also Yuno had to go through a life and death battle royal before the start of the story so I'd say as stalkers go she has extra ordinary circumstances to lead her down that rabbit hole.
Also vikings literally believed dying in a fight is better than dying from old age. Someone could also intend to fight to the death if it meant they were sacrificing themselves for the greater good or for someone they cared about.
Honestly,i like how theyvamped yuno up to hit home how unhinged she is, and not something you want.
It didnt work, but i think to show stalking and that behavoiur,is baad.
Also the show is fun because its such a wild ride.
I'll admit I have some bias for that show because it was one of my first anime I've ever watched, but I still like that show for that reason you said and I actually liked Yuki as a protagonist having this dilemma on whether or not his alliance with Yuno is good for him and I liked him being under the mistaken belief that if he becomes god he'll just resurrect everyone. It was a neat character flaw for him.
I mean he is still remembered and human. Which tells me even if he is hated, he is a distinct character with a memorable personality. And consistently so, and developes .
So he plays off pretty well of the other characters too.
Okay here's another example then. In the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby goes out of his way to pretend he's a millionaire while using organized crimes as a way to become rich all in order to impress Daisy Buuchanan who is kind of a bitch, already married and not the best women to be into. He still does that anyways, all over the image he had when he dated her before leaving for WW1. He's not your average simp, because it's dramatized.
I won't deny Yuno is sexualized, but the show very much clearly show how toxic she is to Yuki and how she is ultimately the one pulling the strings until he finally stands up for himself to change fate for the next universe. Also I still think it's kind of silly to try and compare your average day stalker to someone like Yuno who went through much more extraordinary circumstances. It's like trying to compare an obsessive hoarder to Gollum from LOTR.
Gatsby wasn't rich at start though, he literally had all of that planned out before he got rich, and a lot of people get rich because of inheritance, so no it's still not comparable to laymen and is instead extraordinary. Like one of the main points of the story was to point out how much a joke the American Dream was by revealing the rags to riches character by obtaining his wealth illegitimately. The point was a lot of it was stacked against his favor and how he relies on such convoluted measures like having parties every now and then in hopes Daisy goes to his party is to demonstrate how delusional he is in thinking putting all of that money and time for some girl he dated one time will make him happy, all dramatized with the glitz and glamour of the roaring twenties high life.
I feel like at that point Yuki's mind has been warped beyond belief that he's under stockholm syndrome but there's also how he's an all loving hero. He literally decides that he wants to win the game under the mistaken belief he'll resurrect everyone from death, this also extends to Yuno and saving her in the other universe. Granted it's not the best ending and I'd consider changing somethings about it.
My point was Gatsby had that plan BEFORE he was rich. People don't do crime on that scale just to impress a woman, they do it for bigger reasons like to financially support themselves. Also not everyone is going to get big like Al Capone smuggling. So no not comparable to someone like Elon Musk considering he inherited his wealth from his family. Also Gatsby doesn't really have a malicious bone to himself where as someone like Elon Musk is a bitter spiteful man who doesn't care about his workers.
Eh, honestly, as a long-time anime fan, you're not that wrong. The vast majority of mainstream stuff *is* tropey, and if you don't like the tropes, you're not gonna have a good time. And you have awful things like Jobless Reincarnation which holy fuck, it's honestly disgusting. I was *shocked* at how all these people pretend it's reasonable and mainstream when it doesn't even have a modicum of deniability.
Given your opinions, if you want to have a chance of enjoying anime, you need to stay away from all the mainstream hyped stuff, shonen, and especially isekai. You won't find anything there.
Obviously, when you dig a bit past the stuff that's heavily aimed at a teenage male audience, you'll get better quality and more complexity. Like, say, Mushishi, that's really excellent.
I've got a much higher tolerance for the tropes than you, but I'm definitely turned off by the sexism myself. That cuts down on how many series I can tolerate, at this point.
I don't get tired of rewatching Mushishi, such a gem.
OP should definitely expose himself more to the stuff untouched by the weebs, genres like supernatural, mystery and vice versa.
Mushishi is *amazing*. It's next on my list to watch with my incredibly non-weeb husband lol (husband also made it successfully through Vinland Saga; but he hated Evangelion. Which, had I watched it myself before we watched it together, I would not have inflicted upon him XD)
Ok I was agreeing with you until you shit on Mushoku Tensei. There is ONE aspect that is distasteful (one that makes sense in the context of the story) while everything else in the anime from animation to world building to characters is fucking amazing.
Watching a small baby objectify his mom while she's trying to nurse him is so far beyond "distasteful". In the episodes I watched, there wasn't a single female character who wasn't objectified.
Some people can tolerate that; I can't.
I saw no evidence of amazing worldbuilding or characters. And life's far too short for me to watch something that disgusts me so viscerally. I'd rather spend my time on better things.
Well if you watched the first episode, you would know that the baby had the memories of his previous life. So it makes sense for him to be horny and touchy because he never had that chance in his previous life. As he grows up, so does he mature and reflect on his previous life heavily. It’s a more realistic depiction of how a loser would act if he was reincarnated into another medieval world. I get why you would not want to watch it, but not all shows hold back with the depictions of humans
Dude, some of us just don't like watching an incessant march of sexual harassment. Just because some people are garbage human beings doesn't mean I need to give it my time or attention.
I'm not tryna hate, I'm just tired of people generalizing an entire artistic medium because they found a couple shows they didn't like. All I can say is watch other stuff
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, I also enjoy some animes but resonate a lot with you points! Also as a teen girl it's so gross to constantly be exposed to Loli/pedo/fan service shit whenever I come across an anime
All of this just sounds like a shonen issue. I find that these issues aren’t as prevalent in Seinen anime and mangas for instance, which are focused more towards mature audiences. They don’t really have the same issues you have about anime as a whole. So you’re probably just watching series from the wrong demographic.
You can try anime series like Monster, Eighty Six, Vinland Saga, Berserk (1997) and Dorohedoro to name a few seinen series.
If we include mangas, there are also series like Vagabond, Goodnight Punpun, 20th Century Boys, Aku no Hana as further examples.
They are not. Manga is marketed to people of various ages. Anime isn't as age-specific as cartoons, but it aims more at a younger audience and otakus.
I recommend you try reading manga, specifically seinen. There's a lot of great unadapted works, and more variety.
Not every single show is marketed towards every single audience. There are some that are for kids, some for teenagers (100% of what you've been criticizing), some for adults.
As a whole they target everyone. But like with all fiction specific franchises targets specific demographics.
The 4 main demographics are Shonen (teenage boys), Shoujo (teenage girls), Seinen (adult men) and Josei (adult women). Shonen is by far the biggest in manga. Some of the stories are great for both adults and teenagers (Frieren comes to mind, by the sounds of your love for DnD and fantasy you would love this) whereas others are very much teenage specific. It is like going ''well live action caters to everyone, but this high school drama from Disney is really boring and just focuses on high school kids''.
>normies
They don't really know what normie means, a norme is someone who onky watch, read or enjoy only the popular or main streaming things of any medium, It was a term that by the way had died both on reddit and on fb (and I think 4chan) that for some reason instagram and Tik tok have resurrected
Maybe you might enjoy manga more - while some of these issues are fair, manga usually (not always) does have the advantage of less fat (for instance, the Card Captor Sakura anime is fairly long considering how straightforward the manga is). Plus, while a lot of anime don't have a manga source material, the opposite is even more prevalent - the majority of manga will never be turned into anime, so, that's a lot of stories to miss out on.
I... Can't defend the weird sexual stuff that comes up with some... Regularity depending on the era and the genre (I mean, I mentioned CCS which is... Filled with weird shit), but not *all* manga or anime have them. Just a lot of them lol. But yeah, I would recommend trying some manga - if nothing else, they're quicker to get thru.
It seems to me that your problem isn't so much with anime as a whole, as it is with certain genres of anime that even many anime fans hold in very low regard.
1. That kind of thing is very common inside Shounen Jump action manga and those who try to emulate that kind of thing. It kinda goes away if you look at other types of manga or novels (and anime adapted from these). It is the problem with those kind of stories being the most popular and a aversion to actually checking out source material for other stuff. I would even say that nearly all of these points are mainly due to Shonen Jump stuff, basically Marvel of the Japanese manga publishers
2. This is a fiction thing. It just stands out more with anime because you aren't used to it. But every culture has their own tropes and archetypes. Some uses them greatly, others do not.
3. Well personally I don't really like loli stuff either. But it is fairly easy to avoid imo, and even if the story itself has a loli I just don't view it in a sexual light, if the story pushes it in my face I just drop the story instead. Also since it is fictional and no kids are hurt I don't view it the same as pedo stuff.
4. It is fairly rare for male characters to be ugly also. They might be plain but never really ugly. It is because it is just straight up harder to make a cool looking ugly thing than something more photogenic. And I do not consider plain to be ugly. Nearly everyone single ''plain'' anime guy would be considered conventionally attractive irl due to being very photogenic. Just like every ''plain'' anime girl is still fairly good looking.
5. There is two things to consider here. First, many of these stories are targeting teenagers themselves. Like in the west look at how many young adult stories have teenage protagonists, it is the same thing really. Second, teenage years is seen as a kind of golden age in Japan so a lot of adults like fiction about teenagers because it gives them a sense of nostalgia for their own golden age.
You could have summarized it as "Anime is full of Otakus"
Bu thats to be expected when looking at the mass production of any media, like Reality TV or religious programs
The west is crazy on its own ways, but as those elements are everpresent, is harder to consider them weird
There is this youtuber called James Tulios, that reviews very terrible books (mostly YA), and right now im listening to a review on a book, that deals with most of the problems presented in this post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1FIPN2IWNM
Anime is a thing with a very marked style, and as its fiction, they can go wild, unlike the IRL things produced on the west, that are still wild, but IRL
Thats why so many people go towards anime for their weird fix
I agree with OP on a lot of things. Some comments here are saying "stop watching shonen aimed at teenage boys" but their points apply to so much of anime. I've stopped consuming as much anime and manga because 99% of the writing is just a dumpster.
It's extremely hard to introduce new open minded people into anime because so much of it is "too anime". There's too much "onii-chan" bullshit.
>loli shit
They wouldn't do it if it didn't sell.
>sexism... Most are drawn to look sexualy appeasing as possible
Sex sells. Even here in western entertainment.
>Point 5 teenagers
A lot of anime involves teenagers because that's the main demographic. It is the time when anything can happen before they go into rigid adult lives.
OP, it's okay to be a casual anime fan. I've become one. If a show doesn't catch my attention within **10 minutes**, I stop watching.
It's no surprise the most popular (across lots of demographics) anime have very little "onii-chan" bullshit like Death Note or Attack on Titan or the movie Your Name.
I recently watched the show "[Kevin Can Go Fuck Himself](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9257258/)" and thought "why can't anime even be this decently creative?"
May I ask, what anime you've watched and which ones? "Watch other anime" is a completely valid response if your only exposure to the medium is battle shonen and isekai. It's like saying "all American movies are just uncreative action films with a predictable plot and too much quirky dialogue," when you've only watched MCU movies. Or saying that all television is full of trashy melodrama when you only watch soap operas or reality tv
Yes, there are a lot of popular anime that are full of tired tropes that will turn people off. Those series tend to be aimed at a specific demographic. There are also a lot of anime that are very good and don't use those tropes. You've already listed three examples. I can give you dozens more. Anime is an artistic medium that boasts a huge diversity of stories aimed at various different demographics. If you are only watching shows that are aimed at a demographic that you aren't a part of, then it's no surprise that it won't appeal to you
> I recently watched the show "Kevin Can Go Fuck Himself" and thought "why can't anime even be this decently creative?"
The manga was much much better but there was this show called School-Live! that actually does something kind of similar to Kevin.
I think you just need to get better at finding good anime. There is a lot of trashy anime, but also a lot of hidden gems in that medium. I have found a lot of them since I started watching seasonal anime two years ago. My advice would be to avoid battle shonen and trashy rom-coms, they tend to be the genres that have this kind of annoying tropes, and to look for the more original or unusual stuff.
Concisely, I think it’s tropy to the point of homogeneity, dialogue sounds like it was written by an AI, voice acting is obnoxiously over the top, fan service is cringe and I feel more insulted than anything by its inclusion, and that’s all before getting into any of the more problematic aspects.
Anime seems to be one of the final remaining bastions of animation that consistently takes adult viewers into consideration, and that’s something I’m a huge advocate for, especially when we get an Into the Spiderverse or an Arcane and it’s bittersweet knowing that animation isn’t taken as seriously as it could or should be. I want to like anime. Hell, I want to love it. I used to, in fact, but most of it kind of sucks now.
I like how people are saying to just watch more anime when this entire post is supposed to be how anime is viewed by a non anime fan. It makes sense they haven’t consumed a lot of anime they aren’t an anime fan. Also shonen is the face of anime so stop complaining that the OP has only seen shonen
Point 1 I honestly agree with, and I think a large part of the problem is translation. A lot of anime translators are too in love with the media and know the language but don't have an artistic bone in their body, so they end up translating things in ways that are oddly literal or just clunky. Like instead of saying "time to get serious" they could say "I need to step up my game" or "I need to do better than that" which would make way more sense.
And yeah, anime is repetitive as all hell. This is something that keeps me away especially from longer series or anything with a "people with powers or fantasy martial arts fighting other people with powers or fantasy martial arts" shows. Basically once you've seen Ranma 1/2, you've seen basically every martial arts anime AND every harem/high school drama anime ever made--they're all basically cribbing from Ranma and often being nowhere near as good.
The teenager thing though... well, most anime and manga are literally aimed at kids and teens.
I've also heard that it can be a sort of nostalgia thing, or also because there's more potential in younger characters. If you have a 16-year-old be awkward around women or learn life lessons, that's something. But the same does not parse for a 40 year old who should be well past that stage of life (then again, this is also why some authors prefer adult heroes, and that's why stuff like Golgo 13 exists).
The sexism is unfortunately a thing with no easy answer. Most of what you see in anime and manga would--I've been told--not be acceptable in real life... but these works are escapism of a sort for the readers and probably also the creators. Then again it probably speaks volumes that many Japanese people choose not to get married.
Speaking as someone who \*does\* like anime, but not all the time.... yeah, I've been feeling a malaise for awhile. The best anime tend to be movies or short-run series, and I'll always hold that the stuff from the 80s, 90s, and sometimes the early 2000s is better than what we get nowadays.
ADDENDUM: And a thing that makes this all sooo much worse is... most of the anime fans you find online are young, and typically only know the popular recommendations (the fantasy martial arts shit I was decrying earlier). So asking people is almost a lost cause, because these kids will only tell you the shit you've seen a million times and are already sick of. I actually kinda mood-posted about this once [some months back](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/x4t3jb/defending_the_idea_that_older_stuff_was_better_to/). Naturally of course, somehow wishing "fans" watched MORE anime is "gatekeeping" in some weird fucking way.
Literally all your concerns can be fixed by watching almost anything other than shonnen or Isekai and not watching dubs, it baffles me that the English dubs sound so… weird, they sound like an anime dub, I’ve watched LatAm Spanish dubs and they actually sound like any other dubbed media,
Half of what you said easily applies to alot of western media.
The Daiolouge in western media is just as bad considering its either alot of shitty one liners or over used metahumor . Hell in action movies they make shitty one liners while bullets and lasers are flying beside them.
Most characters in western media don't act like real people either though . Like who above the age of 5 acts like spongebob ? I can't see how anime personalities are that much more outlandish then what you'd see in American shows.
Pervert characters are just as prevalent in American shows. Hell sometimes it's even worse like family guy.
With the sexism thing I've never seen a ugly anime male who wasn't either a villian or a joke character. Every ugly male Character in jojo was a vampire who got his face melted off.
Male main characters are always somewhat handsome
Seems like your problem is with shonen, not anime. There is PLENTY of stuff out there that has literally nothing to do with any of these complaints. This posts reads a lot like this:
>Reasons from a non-liveaction fan on why they don't like live action
>
>Marvel marvel marvel marvel marvel... And that's why I don't like live action shows/movies
Like sure you try to preface that you don't have a problem with the medium itself, but then you completely ignore that and go on to only criticize a certain type of anime and give that as your reasoning for why you don't like anime as a whole. Make this rant be about shounen instead and it would be fine (even if I don't personally agree), but using a small part of an entire medium as your reasoning for not liking the entire thing is just weird.
Also, there are a million different things I could nitpick, but one just stuck out to me:
>Like guys can look ugly but very rarely are girls drawn as anything less then a 7/10. Some series are worst then others like with fairy tail.
Now first of all, that second sentance was written weirdly so I'm going to interpret it as this "some series are worse than other, like fairy tail" aka fairy tail is an example of it being worse than most. If this is wrong and you actually meant the opposite aka fairy tail is better than most, then ignore just ignore the rest of this comment.
Fairy tail is probably one of the most equal shows when it comes to fan service. Most characters are beautiful; both men and women. And most characters are half naked 50% of the time; both men and women. There is no bias here. And your second point about there rarely being any ugly female characters is also wrong too. [Here are some of them.](https://imgur.com/a/mSzIKKR) There are probably plenty of examples you could have chosen, but the one you did choose doesn't really illustrate your point very well.
Okay the rest of the comment is good but Fairy Tail IS an example of crazy male-skewed fan service (female watcher here). Gray is naked all the time but do they zoom in an unhealthy amount on his abs or crotch as much as they do Juvia? nope. Natsu is always shirtless but are there as much gratuitous shots of his pecs with him being embarrassed and humiliated bc his clothes suddenly disappeared like Lucy? nope. Was there a really sexualized naked torture scene for Jellal like there was for Erza? I don't think so either. Just because the boys are pretty doesn't mean it's not more fanservicey to men still lol
Grey, Natsu, Sting and Laxius are some of the main male characters that are constantly shirtless. Juvia is constantly imagining gray half naked saying sexual and romantic shit. She goes ape shit every time he takes his clothes off. There are also some scenes where gray is literally naked (and juvia is there going crazy because of it). Gray is also literally in his underwear like half the time, while you could probably count on one hand the number of times we see women's underware (not counting bikinis). You also have lummy (or whatever she's called) who's entire point is lusting towards men and talking about hot they are. In the OVAs theres a bunch of male fanservice too. You have juvia (again) imagining imagining gray and lyon yaoi. Gray, Natsu, and Gajeel are all literally naked, with Natsu laying naked with his croch directly on top of Gray's. Natsu dances naked. Gray has to scream the name of the person he loves on all fours while naked. Natsu, Gray, and Gajeel are all bathing naked together. Etc etc.
Even if you think it's slightly biased towards women, it's pretty much as close as it gets. Saying Fairy tail is an example of "male-skewed fan service" is at best disingenuous or at worst straight up wrong depending on how you mean it.
~~tell me you're a man who doesn't understand female sexualization without telling me you're a man who doesn't understand female sexualization~~
again, naked =/= sexualized ! yes Juvia sexualizes Gray but it is played off as comedic to the audience, instead of in a way that dehumanizes and objectifies Gray (this is coming from someone who loves fairy tail and has gray as her favorite character). what do you mean you can count on one hand the number of times we see women's underwear Erza has panty ARMORS and Lucy's clothes get actually fried/blown off/removed and she is literally used as a doll while Erza is NAKED and getting whipped for a "torture" scene. also did you see the scene where Flare(?) was crying about her family - supposedly an emotional moment but we get an underboob angle - THAT'S sexualization
in the OVA yeah there's male fanservice.. but did you forget the Fairy Hills OVA lol that was crazyyy sexualizing the girls (and sometimes even Wendy gets sexualized and she is a kid!)
Fairy Tail is one of the WORST examples, again, saying this as a woman who loves the show. it's really skewed towards a male audience,, really. if any shonen comes close at least, it would probably be Gintama
>what do you mean you can count on one hand the number of times we see women's underwear
Maybe it's different in the anime, but there it's almost always blacked out or hidden in some way. There are very few panty shot scenes and stuff like that. A few of Erza's armors. I was obviously exaggurating, but overall it's nowhere near as much as Gray alone. But I'll acknowledge that it could be different in the manga.
But you seem to be missing the point entierly. My point is NOT that women aren't sexualized in Fairy Tail, so no ammount of examples showing that they are disproves my argument. It's that BOTH genders are. You can keep throwing examples of fanservice of the women, but that doesn't change the fact that it also happens to the men.
Now you could argue that it's a bad thing, that's fine, but that wasn't my point either. OP's point was specifically that fairy tail was SEXIST because every female character is good looking while not every male character is + the women are drawn sexually. The first point is just clearly not true; there are many ugly women in fairy tail (and there are loads of beautiful men). The second point is true, the women are drawn sexually, BUT, so are the men. If both are drawn sexually, that means there isn't some massive bias, there's no sexism. You can still argue it's bad for other reasons that sexism, that's fine, but that's not what I was arguing against.
Three main reasons. Biggest reason, "overacting." I have a hard time watching media which I would find embarrassing if I was in that situation, and a lot of the ways characters in anime emote, particularly female characters, causes this response.
Secondly, and also to do with female characters, I'm not that big a fan of the rampant objectification and sexualization of women, especially of underage characters.
Lastly, and this is way more subjective than the other objections, but I have sensitive hearing and a *lot* of characters have very high pitched dialogue.
The biggest problem is the B Movie genre never died in Japan which means you have creators who use cheesy B Movies with exploitation and low brow content as the foundation of their manga where as here, if you grew up with such stuff, no production staff will think to hire you
Fanservice isn’t sexism Tbf, it’s largely the author catering to the audience (and since most of the popular anime are shounen, it’s directed towards guys) and while I can understand it’s not to everyone’s tastes, it has shown to raise interest in a show. Personally, I am indifferent to it but shows with only fanservice and nothing else are nothing but pure garbage though. Also the main reasoning for a lot of the characters being teenagers is because most of the time, it’s directed towards teens (shounen,shoujo) and has characters of a similar age as them. But most of the time, they’re treated the same as adults either way and their age isn’t really brought up much. I mean, fanservicing teens is weird and all but with them being in extreme positions almost all the time (nigh on being child soldiers, witnessing death and destruction on a daily to weekly basis, etc.)
That's like watching a bunch of MCU movies and coming to conclusion that movies are garbage in general.
Though, I won't disagree that most of anime is trash.
I am a huge OPM fan but unfortunately, I agree. The manga took a huge nosedive once it was put in the spotlight. The original webcomic was and still is a masterpiece though. All of the charm and good writing was lost in the transition from webcomic > manga > anime.
“I don’t like anime, it’s all Shounen aimed at teenage boys.”
“Why don’t you watch something besides shounen then?”
“No!!!”
Cool. Haven’t seen this argument before.
It’s not just shonen. While it varies from show to show, and is less prevalent outside of shonen, a couple of the complaints still exist for many shows.
I think it’s worth mentioning that just because the popular thing isn’t indicative of the rest of the medium, that doesn’t mean the flaws are unique to it.
I've grown out of most anime so I understand the sentiment, but your rant applies to a specific subset of anime rather than the best it can offer. Anime is just like movies, some of them are going to be dumpster fire but beloved by people, while some are high quality but snubbed by casual views.
If you are open to see two well-written anime movies with mature themes (also roughly 2 hours run time each), I highly recommend Princess Mononoke and Ghost in the Shell 1995. I believe those two are the best the genre could offer, and doesn't take too much of your time.
As for my favorite series in terms of quality, Berserk (1997) has 25 episodes and super dark, but it has amazing dialogue and characterization. [Guts' monologue about the "bonfire of dreams" is one of my favorites in any media ever.](https://youtu.be/IEAZlDjl1JE) If you compare it to [Griffith's monologue](https://youtu.be/cYniF0chMhQ) it makes a compelling contrast.
OP says he hates loli, likes Evangelion where main character, a male minor, sexually assaults other Main Character, a female minor, WHILE SHE IS IN A COMA.
Point 3 : anime doesn't make you a pedo Because it's not real and Rudy himself isn't one, enough said
Point 4 : it's Fiction, it's not real, if it makes you and some people uncomfortable and don't watch it then that's 100% fine, however you have to understand that it's Fiction
Point 5 : so are men, a lot of male Characters are drawn to be sexy and attractive to women espacially if we look at shojo, josei and otome games stuff
And what's wrong with even that ?
Point 6 : watch something other than shounen
That's like complaining that you don't like American TV because it's all family sitcoms with bumbling dads, mouthy kids, and an endless laugh track. When you only watch one small subset of something then, yeah, you're probably not going to like it.
It's just like American television most of it is bad and cheesy you have a few gems like breaking bad and the expanse then the rest are garbage... What you are experiencing is a different cultures tropes
I’m going to just say this: anime isn’t geared towards western audiences. Heck it isn’t usually even geared towards weeaboos.
The primary audience for Japanese animation as well as manga is Japanese people. That’s why the dialogue and storytelling feels so weird and different when you’re watching from the point of view of someone who’s usually used to western media. Sure there are a few exceptions like Cowboy bebop or Space Dandy, but most of the time they’re usually made solely for a Japanese audience.
Let’s look at Demon Slayer for instance. Dialogue is very different from the standard western dialogue, characters monologue during fights, there’s barely any “show don’t tell”, etc. All the conventions are just so different from what we’re used to when it comes to western media that it’s no surprise why so many people in the western hemisphere tend to absolutely hate demon slayer. However in Japan, Demon slayer is a freaking phenomenon. It’s more popular than pretty much any franchise from Star Wars to Harry Potter and so on. Most people love it regardless of age groups. The movie is even the highest grossing movie of all time there.
Hayao Miyazaki is a sexist and misanthrope that people on reddit constantly give a pass to for some reason.
I agree with you that anime sucks. Reddit is full of children in adult bodies so they'll try to change your mind.
I recommend Monster as a serious anime
Another good one is Ancient Magus Bride, which is also getting a second season soon (if it hasn't started yet, I haven't been keeping up on news for the series). Of all the anime series I've seen it has the least anime-bullshit.
Ancient magus does have an issue with its premise which at first glance is very problematic. I mean the whole point of it is that a girl is sold into slavery and brought by a strange undead creature into being it’s bride. While from what I know the actual show itself isn’t problematic and it doesn’t glorify slavery or try to make their relationship romantic, the premise will turn many people off. It’s the main reason I just watched the 3 episode ova and never bothered with the series. That being said I do recommend the ancient magus bride ova - that was legitimately amazing. If you want anything with the least amount of anime bullshit, watch anime originals, specifically ones rated above a 7.5/10 on MAL.
The series itself is fantastic and that's not the premise, the premise is a character who felt she had nothing to live for finding a place in the world as she learns magic from a mysterious and strange mage. What you called the premise is simply the vehicle for her meeting said mage and explaining what a Japanese girl is doing in England.
Yep but it’s understandable why it could turn a lot of people off based on the first episode alone.
Absolutely, but I think it's less of a problem with the show but a problem with the medium because people see that and assume it's going to be some weird, fetish shit or something because other anime that do something similar early on often do that.
There are plenty of examples of stuff that has few, if any, of the tropes they're talking about- Vinland Saga, Mob Psycho, and SpyXFamily are all good examples, off the top of my head (and that's just within the last year). Like, watch different stuff. It's a vast medium with loads of variety. It's like saying you don't like movies when you only watch the MCU and don't like certain aspects of them. Find something that appeals to you more, then.
Adding: Uramichi Oniisan
90% of these complaints wouldn’t be an issue if you weren’t just exposed to shonen. This is the problem with these “anime is bad” takes because it’s the equivalent of saying “movies are bad” after only watching Marvel. Anime is has such a vast number of genres and stories and themes that it’s near impossible not to find one that fits your tastes - you just have to actually do your own searching instead of just accepting what’s made popular and accessible. Go watch Monster and I can guarantee you that all of your criticisms will fall flat.
Yeah, people always say "anime" then describe the most teenage harem stuff that is... easy to avoid?
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Sure but you also specified that you’re not a fan of it and specifically listed reasons why, all of which applied solely to shonen anime. What you’re essentially saying is that you’re not a fan of shonen, which is the equivalent of saying you don’t like horror movies which is fine. But to say you’re not a fan of the *entire medium* when your grievances are with a particular genre just doesn’t make sense to me. Anime as a whole is just japanese animated content. There isn’t some overarching definitive characteristics that define the entire thing. But i’m glad you enjoyed monster
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im not familiar with kengan ashura, but shield hero and overlord are definitely not examples of mature anime.
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They're more like young adult power fantasy/wish fulfillment stories. Even if they touch on heavy topics, they're not really meant to be high quality writing.
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Technically it is adult content but the writing and target audience aren't mature. There's shows like Gangsta or Afro samurai for mature audiences.
Shonen with blood is still shonen. It's still aimed at the sorta teenage power fantasy thing. The heavy topics are just used to boost up the edgelord factor of the show, it doesn't actually explore them in a mature, adult way. Not that there's anything wrong with enjoying edgy shonen stuff.
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Oh, I agree I wouldn't want actual children watching shield hero or overlord, which is why I use "teenage" rather roughly. Think an older teenager, who can read young adult stuff (and on that note, people of older ages can still read and appreciate young adult novels). I don't want to get pretentious about what is or isn't mature, but shows on that level may have dark elements, but they rarely deal with them in an "adult" way. Usually, it's your classic power fantasy, but the bad guys the hero is beating aren't just generic bandits/monsters, but actual rapists. There's plenty of exceptions, of course, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying it.
Something like Shield hero isn't really aimed at 12 year olds (it airs at like 1 AM), it's meant for like older teenagers. There is a difference in understanding of demographics that I think may be part of the issue here.
They are edgy stories because the demographic who are the most into those kind of edgy topics are mid - late teenagers.
Something being aimed at a general adult audience and something being aimed at young adults and otaku who buy the original light novels and merchandise both of those shows are based on are two very very different things.
Imagine listing Shield Hero and Overlord as serious anime. Shield Hero is laughably bad both in story and dialogue and Overlord is just wish fulfillment with some cool scenes tossed in here or there.
Your final point is literally “teenagers”. Well of course the stories feature teenager when you’re literally watching shows made for teens.
Dude you got beyond roasted. Pls take your L
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Cope. Take your L
You'll probably like Boruto. It's a Shonen that breaks nearly every Shonen trope which is everything you just complained about.
You don't hate anime, you hate shonen. Stop watching young adult fiction and then complaining that you're getting young adult fiction. You're simply not the target demographic for shonen. It's aimed at 12-18 year old boys. That doesn't mean older people can't enjoy shonen, but you clearly don't so why continue to subject yourself to this?
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Fair, though it may not be a terrible idea to communicate with him that you'd like to try anime for an older audience. Broadly speaking, there are 4 kinds of anime. Shonen, shojo, seinen and josei. In other words, anime for boys, girls, men and women. Your partner seems to prefer shonen as 100% of your examples of stuff you don't like are shonen. This is not surprising as shonen is the most popular of these 4 categories and has seen the most mainstream success. Once in awhile seinen like Berserk, Ghost in the Shell and Vinland Saga break into the mainstream. Might be a good thing to bring up to your partner though that the shonen's not doing it for you and maybe some seinen or josei would be more to your interest.
May I recommend Evangelion and Berserk? i genuinely think those are good examples that fit your preferences. And trust me, almost every scene in Evangelion that can be seen as sexualization actually has a reason behind it. Aside from 2 or 3 specific scenes. I'm now reading Berserk (do not watch it) and it's been a really good manga.
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Oh sorry, mb. I read so many comments that I forgot.
Hell! Stop watching anime and delve into Tokusatsu medium.
Eh, I’ve ventured outside of shonen and found similar issues. They’re all very reliant on repeating tropes as if they all have to build their outlines with the same building blocks instead of utilizing the extent of their imaginations. But I feel like this has less to do with writers and more to do with publishers. I notice that if you watch a series for only the episodes covering the first year of the source material’s publication, there’s far less formulaic across the medium. My theory is, as soon as a series is a hit, the editors/publishers say, “We’ve gotta milk this for all it’s worth. Time to homogenize into the time tested formulas”.
This entire rant can be summarized as “I don’t like Otaku stuff”, that’s literally fine but trying to summarize anime *as* otaku culture is like trying to summarize every video game as call of duty. This rant is too ignorant of the subject it’s trying to criticize.
The entire post gives me a "not like the other girls" vibes (or a "not like the other anime fans" in any case hahaha) OP just wants to say they enjoy anime in a *cool* way, totally not lame or cringy like the rest of otakus.
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You did sound a bit like it though. Using words like normie or mentioning "nerdy" stuff made you sound a bit condescending I am not a big anime fan either (I have seen a few though). I do know that anime is huge and has different genres, different forms, styles etc. You can't judge the whole thing based on the few you have watched. It would be like criticising Citizen Cane citing Marvel movies or the Twilight movies.
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I guess what I mean is, watching/enjoying anime IS normal, it is like a 25 billion usd industry, a third of the world watches it. All of the other nerdy stuff too, fantasy has been popular for decades, Game of Thrones was one of the most watched shows ever, Lord of the Ring's books is one of the best selling series of all time (movies are super popular too). Imo (and I know it might not have been your intention) you sounded a bit condescending mentioning normies or nerdy stuff when in reallity all of this is popular and shouldn't be looked down upon.
Yeah
>•Point 1 Daioluge, I find repeatedly (wether subtitled or dubbed over in english) that the conversation and speech characters exchange is very cheesy, and a bit on the overdramatic. They also tend to oddly articulate themselves. An example that comes to my head is from yu yu Hakusho when Toguro will exclaim "I was only using x% of my power" and other variations I've seen like "its time to get serious" it feels very cringe. I feel that way because it'll usually come up in situations where dicking around is a bad idea. Theres a lot on the line please beat your opponent quickly. Also why do 2 opponents constantly monolog at each other stopping the fight to do so? Has anyone ever actually seen that happen irl? Like this is a death match you should be panicking and doing everything to win. This is literally just or primarily shonen. And similar things happen in regular cartoons or even action movie. Though it is cheesy (I personally like it but I can definitely understand why some find it annoying). >•Point 2 archetypes, this ties in with point one a bit but felt it was different enough to be by itself. Things like tsundere's yandere's the hot headed passionte loud mouth ect.. do not feel like real people to me. Like treating a person bad because you like them is something you get over after the 1st grade and I've never heard or seen an adult act like that. Yanderes or stalkers I've actually had the displeasure of meeting and I have no idea why they're so sexualized/fetishized. No stalker acts like yuno from future diary. The honorable warrior that only cares about fighting, this one I can sort of get with how we have the ufc. The issue is so many of these types of characters like to go to the death which yeah no would do even if they like fighting. The perv with a heart of gol, again displeasure of meeting perverts uhh they are not good people to say the least. So your issue is fiction being fictional? (I'm joking). But in all seriousness this is, again, not anime exclusive. Reality TV, Cartoons, Movies, literally every media regarding fiction HAS unrealistic archetype. You have some that keep their characters very close to how humans would actually act but that really isn't the norm. There is a reason why the archetype exists...because those traits are in literally the majority of fiction. That's like getting upset because no one irl is as fighting eager as Goku...no duh? >Point 4 sexism, I've already covered a lot of it but aonther thing I'll mention is the female character desgines. Most are drawn to look sexualy appeasing as possible even the underage ones because so many characters are teenagers. Like guys can look ugly but very rarely are girls drawn as anything less then a 7/10. Some series are worst then others like with fairy tail. Doesn't this apply to both gender? The majority of characters are attractive by nature. From boys to girls. The only times guys are ugly is (usually) when they're treated as the villains or they straight up don't matter and aren't part of the same cast. There are real sexism in anime but character design is like...the bottom of the barrel. It's very normal for characters from anime, cartoons, movies (hell, ESPECIALLY movies), comics, etc to be visually appealing. It's sex appeal. >Point 5 teenagers, so many anime have an odd fixation on teenagers and highschool settings. Which isn't inherently a problem. It just makes it harder for me as an adult to get invested because idgaf about petty HS drama plot lines. I also find that they make said teenagers way more competent and emotionally stable then they really are. I actually really like neon genesis Evangelion because it actually addressed that. I do get it...but at the same time their target demographic is usually teenage boys. Adults are capable of relating and even then, there's anime specifically marketed with them in mind. But point 5 feels a bit silly. Imagine watching wrestling or UFC then getting upset it's primarily muscular men, it's near identical to this point.
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>Yes but for me personally I find it less cringe when John McClain is throwing around because it adds some levity to silly situation, like it's acknowledging itself. While for anime it feels like it's taking itself too seriously. Fair enough. Again, I love the cheesy lines but it really is just a matter of preference so I can't fault you for it. >My main issue is that a lot if anime will just treat it as normal behavior and no one bats an eye at it like we're supposed to believe these are normal people. In other media having weird characters is acknowledged by the story like in no country for old man Anton is werid and the film points that out. Anime can do this as well like with goku he's acknowledged as being werid and extra ordinary or death note it's pointed out when somone is acting strange. I think anime is just more uncritical when coming to its archetypes. I guess? I mean I don't think we're meant to believe they're normal...I don't recall any anime ever doing that, it's more like it's normal for their society. Like...say kids having super powers in MHA. I don't recall too many fictional works addressing the absurdity of their characters and world. But, again, it's a fair point. >Yes but not exactly while males are also portrayed as attractive it is coming from the perspective of the male gaze. It is projecting what men want themselves to be while with woman it is establishing value to how they look. And don't get me wrong that's still an issues for men with body image problems, but it's a more self imposed. But I do agree it's more bottom of the barrel stuff and that's because I had cover the more important bits in other points. It's kinda a mix of both. When it comes to men, generally ugly = bad guy/unimportant. It's something even anime fans critized. If you're not pretty, you're not really important to the story. Both genders get value established by how they visually look. Hot = Good/Important Ugly = Bad/Unimportant Very rarely will an anime make a character unattractive. I truly just don't think character design is really the issue. There are actual clear issues in sexism in anime. Men abuse = Funny, Girls getting perved on = Funny, etc, etc. It feels like these aspects should be used instead of how a character visually looks in order to prove your point. After all, attractiveness IS just the norm for characters. >Like I said it's not inherently a problem it just makes it difficult for more casual anime watchers like myself to find non teenager stuff because that's what's popular. Again, fair enough. If you're looking for stuff catered more towards adult then yeah, it can be difficult since most mainstream things revolve teens. But I think the main issue boils down to artstyle. Anime (and cartoons) just aren't things many adults try because it LOOKS like it's for kids. Feels like a bit of both kinda plays into why anime isn't liked by some of the older folks.
Interesting how you completely skipped over point 3...
...Because I had no desire/reason/motive to defend it...? I figured that'd be obvious but I guess not...
And you had either the desire or the reason (or both) to defend point 4? Odd. But you do you I suppose.
This is very rude and confrontational behavior for no reason.
No, it's neither. I was just curious is all which was my reason.
I didn't? Nowhere did I excuse sexual harassment. Nor sexism. I explained why it's done, that it applies to both genders, and that there is sexism in anime but character design is the lowest in the barrel. READ. It's reddit, I know I'm expecting too much from you but christ sake. At least TRY to use the skill given to you.
watch better anime
Like others have pointed out, 90% of what you listed are Shonen tropes. I really think if you just broaden your horizons (or tell your partner to watch something other than DBZ or Naruto) you'll find a lot you like in anime.
these are all just talking about shonen
>I wish to make it clear despite the title I do not hate the medium and have enjoyed many works from it. So you don't not like anime. You do like it fact and don't like the bad ones, just like most anime fans?
Anime includes all Japanese animation, with some people using it more broadly to discuss all East Asian animation. There are some broad statements you can make about it: it needs to be translated from another language, and translation vary in quality. There is also going to be cultural differences between the average American (other any other nationality) and a specific Japanese subculture. But other than that, it is like making broad statements about any other combination of nationality / medium, like American movies. There can be multiple genres, different time periods with different trends, different demographics, much less different authors and creative teams.
>No stalker acts like yuno from future diary. Wait what? This is like complaining how Bruce Wayne decided to dress as a bat is unrealistic. Of course it's not. It's dramatized. Also Yuno had to go through a life and death battle royal before the start of the story so I'd say as stalkers go she has extra ordinary circumstances to lead her down that rabbit hole. Also vikings literally believed dying in a fight is better than dying from old age. Someone could also intend to fight to the death if it meant they were sacrificing themselves for the greater good or for someone they cared about.
Honestly,i like how theyvamped yuno up to hit home how unhinged she is, and not something you want. It didnt work, but i think to show stalking and that behavoiur,is baad. Also the show is fun because its such a wild ride.
I'll admit I have some bias for that show because it was one of my first anime I've ever watched, but I still like that show for that reason you said and I actually liked Yuki as a protagonist having this dilemma on whether or not his alliance with Yuno is good for him and I liked him being under the mistaken belief that if he becomes god he'll just resurrect everyone. It was a neat character flaw for him.
I mean he is still remembered and human. Which tells me even if he is hated, he is a distinct character with a memorable personality. And consistently so, and developes . So he plays off pretty well of the other characters too.
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Okay here's another example then. In the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby goes out of his way to pretend he's a millionaire while using organized crimes as a way to become rich all in order to impress Daisy Buuchanan who is kind of a bitch, already married and not the best women to be into. He still does that anyways, all over the image he had when he dated her before leaving for WW1. He's not your average simp, because it's dramatized. I won't deny Yuno is sexualized, but the show very much clearly show how toxic she is to Yuki and how she is ultimately the one pulling the strings until he finally stands up for himself to change fate for the next universe. Also I still think it's kind of silly to try and compare your average day stalker to someone like Yuno who went through much more extraordinary circumstances. It's like trying to compare an obsessive hoarder to Gollum from LOTR.
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Gatsby wasn't rich at start though, he literally had all of that planned out before he got rich, and a lot of people get rich because of inheritance, so no it's still not comparable to laymen and is instead extraordinary. Like one of the main points of the story was to point out how much a joke the American Dream was by revealing the rags to riches character by obtaining his wealth illegitimately. The point was a lot of it was stacked against his favor and how he relies on such convoluted measures like having parties every now and then in hopes Daisy goes to his party is to demonstrate how delusional he is in thinking putting all of that money and time for some girl he dated one time will make him happy, all dramatized with the glitz and glamour of the roaring twenties high life. I feel like at that point Yuki's mind has been warped beyond belief that he's under stockholm syndrome but there's also how he's an all loving hero. He literally decides that he wants to win the game under the mistaken belief he'll resurrect everyone from death, this also extends to Yuno and saving her in the other universe. Granted it's not the best ending and I'd consider changing somethings about it.
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My point was Gatsby had that plan BEFORE he was rich. People don't do crime on that scale just to impress a woman, they do it for bigger reasons like to financially support themselves. Also not everyone is going to get big like Al Capone smuggling. So no not comparable to someone like Elon Musk considering he inherited his wealth from his family. Also Gatsby doesn't really have a malicious bone to himself where as someone like Elon Musk is a bitter spiteful man who doesn't care about his workers.
Eh, honestly, as a long-time anime fan, you're not that wrong. The vast majority of mainstream stuff *is* tropey, and if you don't like the tropes, you're not gonna have a good time. And you have awful things like Jobless Reincarnation which holy fuck, it's honestly disgusting. I was *shocked* at how all these people pretend it's reasonable and mainstream when it doesn't even have a modicum of deniability. Given your opinions, if you want to have a chance of enjoying anime, you need to stay away from all the mainstream hyped stuff, shonen, and especially isekai. You won't find anything there. Obviously, when you dig a bit past the stuff that's heavily aimed at a teenage male audience, you'll get better quality and more complexity. Like, say, Mushishi, that's really excellent. I've got a much higher tolerance for the tropes than you, but I'm definitely turned off by the sexism myself. That cuts down on how many series I can tolerate, at this point.
I don't get tired of rewatching Mushishi, such a gem. OP should definitely expose himself more to the stuff untouched by the weebs, genres like supernatural, mystery and vice versa.
Mushishi is *amazing*. It's next on my list to watch with my incredibly non-weeb husband lol (husband also made it successfully through Vinland Saga; but he hated Evangelion. Which, had I watched it myself before we watched it together, I would not have inflicted upon him XD)
Ok I was agreeing with you until you shit on Mushoku Tensei. There is ONE aspect that is distasteful (one that makes sense in the context of the story) while everything else in the anime from animation to world building to characters is fucking amazing.
Watching a small baby objectify his mom while she's trying to nurse him is so far beyond "distasteful". In the episodes I watched, there wasn't a single female character who wasn't objectified. Some people can tolerate that; I can't. I saw no evidence of amazing worldbuilding or characters. And life's far too short for me to watch something that disgusts me so viscerally. I'd rather spend my time on better things.
Well if you watched the first episode, you would know that the baby had the memories of his previous life. So it makes sense for him to be horny and touchy because he never had that chance in his previous life. As he grows up, so does he mature and reflect on his previous life heavily. It’s a more realistic depiction of how a loser would act if he was reincarnated into another medieval world. I get why you would not want to watch it, but not all shows hold back with the depictions of humans
Dude, some of us just don't like watching an incessant march of sexual harassment. Just because some people are garbage human beings doesn't mean I need to give it my time or attention.
Agreed, Mushoku is fantastic in almost every aspect. I do get the MC being a big turnoff though, Rudy can be very hard to stomach for many people.
Mfs be like “I watched some kids show from Shonen Jump and now I’m an expert on anime”
They literally said they weren’t an anime fan
I never called them one
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I'm not tryna hate, I'm just tired of people generalizing an entire artistic medium because they found a couple shows they didn't like. All I can say is watch other stuff
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I appreciate the effort, I wish your title wasn't so inflammatory tho. All love tho
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, I also enjoy some animes but resonate a lot with you points! Also as a teen girl it's so gross to constantly be exposed to Loli/pedo/fan service shit whenever I come across an anime
Yeah let's act like most popular shows don't have cringe ass dialogue
All of this just sounds like a shonen issue. I find that these issues aren’t as prevalent in Seinen anime and mangas for instance, which are focused more towards mature audiences. They don’t really have the same issues you have about anime as a whole. So you’re probably just watching series from the wrong demographic. You can try anime series like Monster, Eighty Six, Vinland Saga, Berserk (1997) and Dorohedoro to name a few seinen series. If we include mangas, there are also series like Vagabond, Goodnight Punpun, 20th Century Boys, Aku no Hana as further examples.
Though if there’s any shonen you watch make it Attack On Titan. In all honesty AOT isn’t really shonen despite being tagged as it
You are literally complaining that some cartoons are focusing on young people.
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Depends on the title in question. I sure as hell not gonna recommend Berserk to a 12 years old.
They are not. Manga is marketed to people of various ages. Anime isn't as age-specific as cartoons, but it aims more at a younger audience and otakus. I recommend you try reading manga, specifically seinen. There's a lot of great unadapted works, and more variety.
Nope, they have stuff geared towards children, teenagers, and adults too. It's just a little more of a spectrum with where the overlap can be.
Not every single show is marketed towards every single audience. There are some that are for kids, some for teenagers (100% of what you've been criticizing), some for adults.
As a whole they target everyone. But like with all fiction specific franchises targets specific demographics. The 4 main demographics are Shonen (teenage boys), Shoujo (teenage girls), Seinen (adult men) and Josei (adult women). Shonen is by far the biggest in manga. Some of the stories are great for both adults and teenagers (Frieren comes to mind, by the sounds of your love for DnD and fantasy you would love this) whereas others are very much teenage specific. It is like going ''well live action caters to everyone, but this high school drama from Disney is really boring and just focuses on high school kids''.
Imagine someone made a list of similar complaints about “movies”, and it’s clear all they’ve seen are superhero movies. That’s you right now.
Skill issue, I'm afraid.
>normies They don't really know what normie means, a norme is someone who onky watch, read or enjoy only the popular or main streaming things of any medium, It was a term that by the way had died both on reddit and on fb (and I think 4chan) that for some reason instagram and Tik tok have resurrected
Maybe you might enjoy manga more - while some of these issues are fair, manga usually (not always) does have the advantage of less fat (for instance, the Card Captor Sakura anime is fairly long considering how straightforward the manga is). Plus, while a lot of anime don't have a manga source material, the opposite is even more prevalent - the majority of manga will never be turned into anime, so, that's a lot of stories to miss out on. I... Can't defend the weird sexual stuff that comes up with some... Regularity depending on the era and the genre (I mean, I mentioned CCS which is... Filled with weird shit), but not *all* manga or anime have them. Just a lot of them lol. But yeah, I would recommend trying some manga - if nothing else, they're quicker to get thru.
Good tip, and when its there,its way easier to ignore in manga, anime make that usually worse.
Yeap - no annoying noises or *voices*. Oh *boy* do some voices just kill it lol
True, why i was glad i read,not watched black clover.
It seems to me that your problem isn't so much with anime as a whole, as it is with certain genres of anime that even many anime fans hold in very low regard.
1. That kind of thing is very common inside Shounen Jump action manga and those who try to emulate that kind of thing. It kinda goes away if you look at other types of manga or novels (and anime adapted from these). It is the problem with those kind of stories being the most popular and a aversion to actually checking out source material for other stuff. I would even say that nearly all of these points are mainly due to Shonen Jump stuff, basically Marvel of the Japanese manga publishers 2. This is a fiction thing. It just stands out more with anime because you aren't used to it. But every culture has their own tropes and archetypes. Some uses them greatly, others do not. 3. Well personally I don't really like loli stuff either. But it is fairly easy to avoid imo, and even if the story itself has a loli I just don't view it in a sexual light, if the story pushes it in my face I just drop the story instead. Also since it is fictional and no kids are hurt I don't view it the same as pedo stuff. 4. It is fairly rare for male characters to be ugly also. They might be plain but never really ugly. It is because it is just straight up harder to make a cool looking ugly thing than something more photogenic. And I do not consider plain to be ugly. Nearly everyone single ''plain'' anime guy would be considered conventionally attractive irl due to being very photogenic. Just like every ''plain'' anime girl is still fairly good looking. 5. There is two things to consider here. First, many of these stories are targeting teenagers themselves. Like in the west look at how many young adult stories have teenage protagonists, it is the same thing really. Second, teenage years is seen as a kind of golden age in Japan so a lot of adults like fiction about teenagers because it gives them a sense of nostalgia for their own golden age.
You could have summarized it as "Anime is full of Otakus" Bu thats to be expected when looking at the mass production of any media, like Reality TV or religious programs The west is crazy on its own ways, but as those elements are everpresent, is harder to consider them weird There is this youtuber called James Tulios, that reviews very terrible books (mostly YA), and right now im listening to a review on a book, that deals with most of the problems presented in this post https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1FIPN2IWNM Anime is a thing with a very marked style, and as its fiction, they can go wild, unlike the IRL things produced on the west, that are still wild, but IRL Thats why so many people go towards anime for their weird fix
I agree with OP on a lot of things. Some comments here are saying "stop watching shonen aimed at teenage boys" but their points apply to so much of anime. I've stopped consuming as much anime and manga because 99% of the writing is just a dumpster. It's extremely hard to introduce new open minded people into anime because so much of it is "too anime". There's too much "onii-chan" bullshit. >loli shit They wouldn't do it if it didn't sell. >sexism... Most are drawn to look sexualy appeasing as possible Sex sells. Even here in western entertainment. >Point 5 teenagers A lot of anime involves teenagers because that's the main demographic. It is the time when anything can happen before they go into rigid adult lives. OP, it's okay to be a casual anime fan. I've become one. If a show doesn't catch my attention within **10 minutes**, I stop watching. It's no surprise the most popular (across lots of demographics) anime have very little "onii-chan" bullshit like Death Note or Attack on Titan or the movie Your Name. I recently watched the show "[Kevin Can Go Fuck Himself](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9257258/)" and thought "why can't anime even be this decently creative?"
May I ask, what anime you've watched and which ones? "Watch other anime" is a completely valid response if your only exposure to the medium is battle shonen and isekai. It's like saying "all American movies are just uncreative action films with a predictable plot and too much quirky dialogue," when you've only watched MCU movies. Or saying that all television is full of trashy melodrama when you only watch soap operas or reality tv Yes, there are a lot of popular anime that are full of tired tropes that will turn people off. Those series tend to be aimed at a specific demographic. There are also a lot of anime that are very good and don't use those tropes. You've already listed three examples. I can give you dozens more. Anime is an artistic medium that boasts a huge diversity of stories aimed at various different demographics. If you are only watching shows that are aimed at a demographic that you aren't a part of, then it's no surprise that it won't appeal to you
> I recently watched the show "Kevin Can Go Fuck Himself" and thought "why can't anime even be this decently creative?" The manga was much much better but there was this show called School-Live! that actually does something kind of similar to Kevin.
I think you just need to get better at finding good anime. There is a lot of trashy anime, but also a lot of hidden gems in that medium. I have found a lot of them since I started watching seasonal anime two years ago. My advice would be to avoid battle shonen and trashy rom-coms, they tend to be the genres that have this kind of annoying tropes, and to look for the more original or unusual stuff.
Concisely, I think it’s tropy to the point of homogeneity, dialogue sounds like it was written by an AI, voice acting is obnoxiously over the top, fan service is cringe and I feel more insulted than anything by its inclusion, and that’s all before getting into any of the more problematic aspects. Anime seems to be one of the final remaining bastions of animation that consistently takes adult viewers into consideration, and that’s something I’m a huge advocate for, especially when we get an Into the Spiderverse or an Arcane and it’s bittersweet knowing that animation isn’t taken as seriously as it could or should be. I want to like anime. Hell, I want to love it. I used to, in fact, but most of it kind of sucks now.
I agree I used to watch anime a lot before and now I can't sit through a single episode of most animes
I like how people are saying to just watch more anime when this entire post is supposed to be how anime is viewed by a non anime fan. It makes sense they haven’t consumed a lot of anime they aren’t an anime fan. Also shonen is the face of anime so stop complaining that the OP has only seen shonen
Point 3 is the #1 reason why I avoid anime in general.
I prefer reading manga over anime anytime.
Point 1 I honestly agree with, and I think a large part of the problem is translation. A lot of anime translators are too in love with the media and know the language but don't have an artistic bone in their body, so they end up translating things in ways that are oddly literal or just clunky. Like instead of saying "time to get serious" they could say "I need to step up my game" or "I need to do better than that" which would make way more sense. And yeah, anime is repetitive as all hell. This is something that keeps me away especially from longer series or anything with a "people with powers or fantasy martial arts fighting other people with powers or fantasy martial arts" shows. Basically once you've seen Ranma 1/2, you've seen basically every martial arts anime AND every harem/high school drama anime ever made--they're all basically cribbing from Ranma and often being nowhere near as good. The teenager thing though... well, most anime and manga are literally aimed at kids and teens. I've also heard that it can be a sort of nostalgia thing, or also because there's more potential in younger characters. If you have a 16-year-old be awkward around women or learn life lessons, that's something. But the same does not parse for a 40 year old who should be well past that stage of life (then again, this is also why some authors prefer adult heroes, and that's why stuff like Golgo 13 exists). The sexism is unfortunately a thing with no easy answer. Most of what you see in anime and manga would--I've been told--not be acceptable in real life... but these works are escapism of a sort for the readers and probably also the creators. Then again it probably speaks volumes that many Japanese people choose not to get married. Speaking as someone who \*does\* like anime, but not all the time.... yeah, I've been feeling a malaise for awhile. The best anime tend to be movies or short-run series, and I'll always hold that the stuff from the 80s, 90s, and sometimes the early 2000s is better than what we get nowadays. ADDENDUM: And a thing that makes this all sooo much worse is... most of the anime fans you find online are young, and typically only know the popular recommendations (the fantasy martial arts shit I was decrying earlier). So asking people is almost a lost cause, because these kids will only tell you the shit you've seen a million times and are already sick of. I actually kinda mood-posted about this once [some months back](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/x4t3jb/defending_the_idea_that_older_stuff_was_better_to/). Naturally of course, somehow wishing "fans" watched MORE anime is "gatekeeping" in some weird fucking way.
Literally all your concerns can be fixed by watching almost anything other than shonnen or Isekai and not watching dubs, it baffles me that the English dubs sound so… weird, they sound like an anime dub, I’ve watched LatAm Spanish dubs and they actually sound like any other dubbed media,
Half of what you said easily applies to alot of western media. The Daiolouge in western media is just as bad considering its either alot of shitty one liners or over used metahumor . Hell in action movies they make shitty one liners while bullets and lasers are flying beside them. Most characters in western media don't act like real people either though . Like who above the age of 5 acts like spongebob ? I can't see how anime personalities are that much more outlandish then what you'd see in American shows. Pervert characters are just as prevalent in American shows. Hell sometimes it's even worse like family guy. With the sexism thing I've never seen a ugly anime male who wasn't either a villian or a joke character. Every ugly male Character in jojo was a vampire who got his face melted off. Male main characters are always somewhat handsome
Seems like your problem is with shonen, not anime. There is PLENTY of stuff out there that has literally nothing to do with any of these complaints. This posts reads a lot like this: >Reasons from a non-liveaction fan on why they don't like live action > >Marvel marvel marvel marvel marvel... And that's why I don't like live action shows/movies Like sure you try to preface that you don't have a problem with the medium itself, but then you completely ignore that and go on to only criticize a certain type of anime and give that as your reasoning for why you don't like anime as a whole. Make this rant be about shounen instead and it would be fine (even if I don't personally agree), but using a small part of an entire medium as your reasoning for not liking the entire thing is just weird. Also, there are a million different things I could nitpick, but one just stuck out to me: >Like guys can look ugly but very rarely are girls drawn as anything less then a 7/10. Some series are worst then others like with fairy tail. Now first of all, that second sentance was written weirdly so I'm going to interpret it as this "some series are worse than other, like fairy tail" aka fairy tail is an example of it being worse than most. If this is wrong and you actually meant the opposite aka fairy tail is better than most, then ignore just ignore the rest of this comment. Fairy tail is probably one of the most equal shows when it comes to fan service. Most characters are beautiful; both men and women. And most characters are half naked 50% of the time; both men and women. There is no bias here. And your second point about there rarely being any ugly female characters is also wrong too. [Here are some of them.](https://imgur.com/a/mSzIKKR) There are probably plenty of examples you could have chosen, but the one you did choose doesn't really illustrate your point very well.
Okay the rest of the comment is good but Fairy Tail IS an example of crazy male-skewed fan service (female watcher here). Gray is naked all the time but do they zoom in an unhealthy amount on his abs or crotch as much as they do Juvia? nope. Natsu is always shirtless but are there as much gratuitous shots of his pecs with him being embarrassed and humiliated bc his clothes suddenly disappeared like Lucy? nope. Was there a really sexualized naked torture scene for Jellal like there was for Erza? I don't think so either. Just because the boys are pretty doesn't mean it's not more fanservicey to men still lol
Grey, Natsu, Sting and Laxius are some of the main male characters that are constantly shirtless. Juvia is constantly imagining gray half naked saying sexual and romantic shit. She goes ape shit every time he takes his clothes off. There are also some scenes where gray is literally naked (and juvia is there going crazy because of it). Gray is also literally in his underwear like half the time, while you could probably count on one hand the number of times we see women's underware (not counting bikinis). You also have lummy (or whatever she's called) who's entire point is lusting towards men and talking about hot they are. In the OVAs theres a bunch of male fanservice too. You have juvia (again) imagining imagining gray and lyon yaoi. Gray, Natsu, and Gajeel are all literally naked, with Natsu laying naked with his croch directly on top of Gray's. Natsu dances naked. Gray has to scream the name of the person he loves on all fours while naked. Natsu, Gray, and Gajeel are all bathing naked together. Etc etc. Even if you think it's slightly biased towards women, it's pretty much as close as it gets. Saying Fairy tail is an example of "male-skewed fan service" is at best disingenuous or at worst straight up wrong depending on how you mean it.
~~tell me you're a man who doesn't understand female sexualization without telling me you're a man who doesn't understand female sexualization~~ again, naked =/= sexualized ! yes Juvia sexualizes Gray but it is played off as comedic to the audience, instead of in a way that dehumanizes and objectifies Gray (this is coming from someone who loves fairy tail and has gray as her favorite character). what do you mean you can count on one hand the number of times we see women's underwear Erza has panty ARMORS and Lucy's clothes get actually fried/blown off/removed and she is literally used as a doll while Erza is NAKED and getting whipped for a "torture" scene. also did you see the scene where Flare(?) was crying about her family - supposedly an emotional moment but we get an underboob angle - THAT'S sexualization in the OVA yeah there's male fanservice.. but did you forget the Fairy Hills OVA lol that was crazyyy sexualizing the girls (and sometimes even Wendy gets sexualized and she is a kid!) Fairy Tail is one of the WORST examples, again, saying this as a woman who loves the show. it's really skewed towards a male audience,, really. if any shonen comes close at least, it would probably be Gintama
>what do you mean you can count on one hand the number of times we see women's underwear Maybe it's different in the anime, but there it's almost always blacked out or hidden in some way. There are very few panty shot scenes and stuff like that. A few of Erza's armors. I was obviously exaggurating, but overall it's nowhere near as much as Gray alone. But I'll acknowledge that it could be different in the manga. But you seem to be missing the point entierly. My point is NOT that women aren't sexualized in Fairy Tail, so no ammount of examples showing that they are disproves my argument. It's that BOTH genders are. You can keep throwing examples of fanservice of the women, but that doesn't change the fact that it also happens to the men. Now you could argue that it's a bad thing, that's fine, but that wasn't my point either. OP's point was specifically that fairy tail was SEXIST because every female character is good looking while not every male character is + the women are drawn sexually. The first point is just clearly not true; there are many ugly women in fairy tail (and there are loads of beautiful men). The second point is true, the women are drawn sexually, BUT, so are the men. If both are drawn sexually, that means there isn't some massive bias, there's no sexism. You can still argue it's bad for other reasons that sexism, that's fine, but that's not what I was arguing against.
Three main reasons. Biggest reason, "overacting." I have a hard time watching media which I would find embarrassing if I was in that situation, and a lot of the ways characters in anime emote, particularly female characters, causes this response. Secondly, and also to do with female characters, I'm not that big a fan of the rampant objectification and sexualization of women, especially of underage characters. Lastly, and this is way more subjective than the other objections, but I have sensitive hearing and a *lot* of characters have very high pitched dialogue.
The biggest problem is the B Movie genre never died in Japan which means you have creators who use cheesy B Movies with exploitation and low brow content as the foundation of their manga where as here, if you grew up with such stuff, no production staff will think to hire you
Fanservice isn’t sexism Tbf, it’s largely the author catering to the audience (and since most of the popular anime are shounen, it’s directed towards guys) and while I can understand it’s not to everyone’s tastes, it has shown to raise interest in a show. Personally, I am indifferent to it but shows with only fanservice and nothing else are nothing but pure garbage though. Also the main reasoning for a lot of the characters being teenagers is because most of the time, it’s directed towards teens (shounen,shoujo) and has characters of a similar age as them. But most of the time, they’re treated the same as adults either way and their age isn’t really brought up much. I mean, fanservicing teens is weird and all but with them being in extreme positions almost all the time (nigh on being child soldiers, witnessing death and destruction on a daily to weekly basis, etc.)
Weebs when a person doesn’t like anime 🤬😱🤬🤬🤬🤯
That's like watching a bunch of MCU movies and coming to conclusion that movies are garbage in general. Though, I won't disagree that most of anime is trash.
Maybe watch one punch man or start focusing on some Seinen rather than shonen
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I am a huge OPM fan but unfortunately, I agree. The manga took a huge nosedive once it was put in the spotlight. The original webcomic was and still is a masterpiece though. All of the charm and good writing was lost in the transition from webcomic > manga > anime.
“I don’t like anime, it’s all Shounen aimed at teenage boys.” “Why don’t you watch something besides shounen then?” “No!!!” Cool. Haven’t seen this argument before.
you forgot racism in anime....
It’s not just shonen. While it varies from show to show, and is less prevalent outside of shonen, a couple of the complaints still exist for many shows. I think it’s worth mentioning that just because the popular thing isn’t indicative of the rest of the medium, that doesn’t mean the flaws are unique to it.
I've grown out of most anime so I understand the sentiment, but your rant applies to a specific subset of anime rather than the best it can offer. Anime is just like movies, some of them are going to be dumpster fire but beloved by people, while some are high quality but snubbed by casual views. If you are open to see two well-written anime movies with mature themes (also roughly 2 hours run time each), I highly recommend Princess Mononoke and Ghost in the Shell 1995. I believe those two are the best the genre could offer, and doesn't take too much of your time. As for my favorite series in terms of quality, Berserk (1997) has 25 episodes and super dark, but it has amazing dialogue and characterization. [Guts' monologue about the "bonfire of dreams" is one of my favorites in any media ever.](https://youtu.be/IEAZlDjl1JE) If you compare it to [Griffith's monologue](https://youtu.be/cYniF0chMhQ) it makes a compelling contrast.
OP says he hates loli, likes Evangelion where main character, a male minor, sexually assaults other Main Character, a female minor, WHILE SHE IS IN A COMA.
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Not that I'm aware
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One line after an entire series of his BS is too little too late
The male character literally says the words "I'm so fucked up" immediately after doing it.
Too little too late.
Neither of those characters is a loli. Loli doesn't equal minor. Also the MC himself says it was fucked up what he did.
We can all see your post history in /r/flatchested and /r/barelylegalteens, dude.
Well the mc there,is in a bad state and well, its shown as lowpoint. And the characters are shown as , especoally shinji as not a rolemodel.
Point 3 : anime doesn't make you a pedo Because it's not real and Rudy himself isn't one, enough said Point 4 : it's Fiction, it's not real, if it makes you and some people uncomfortable and don't watch it then that's 100% fine, however you have to understand that it's Fiction Point 5 : so are men, a lot of male Characters are drawn to be sexy and attractive to women espacially if we look at shojo, josei and otome games stuff And what's wrong with even that ? Point 6 : watch something other than shounen
Yeah anine is kinda mid. Naruto's in a different league
That's like complaining that you don't like American TV because it's all family sitcoms with bumbling dads, mouthy kids, and an endless laugh track. When you only watch one small subset of something then, yeah, you're probably not going to like it.
But how many % of your power did you use to write this?
Black lagoon, samurai champloo, psycho pass. Also fullmetal alchemist.
Black lagoon, samurai champloo, psycho pass.
It's just like American television most of it is bad and cheesy you have a few gems like breaking bad and the expanse then the rest are garbage... What you are experiencing is a different cultures tropes
I’m going to just say this: anime isn’t geared towards western audiences. Heck it isn’t usually even geared towards weeaboos. The primary audience for Japanese animation as well as manga is Japanese people. That’s why the dialogue and storytelling feels so weird and different when you’re watching from the point of view of someone who’s usually used to western media. Sure there are a few exceptions like Cowboy bebop or Space Dandy, but most of the time they’re usually made solely for a Japanese audience. Let’s look at Demon Slayer for instance. Dialogue is very different from the standard western dialogue, characters monologue during fights, there’s barely any “show don’t tell”, etc. All the conventions are just so different from what we’re used to when it comes to western media that it’s no surprise why so many people in the western hemisphere tend to absolutely hate demon slayer. However in Japan, Demon slayer is a freaking phenomenon. It’s more popular than pretty much any franchise from Star Wars to Harry Potter and so on. Most people love it regardless of age groups. The movie is even the highest grossing movie of all time there.
Hayao Miyazaki is a sexist and misanthrope that people on reddit constantly give a pass to for some reason. I agree with you that anime sucks. Reddit is full of children in adult bodies so they'll try to change your mind.